Wesley Chapel Home Sales March 2017 – Tampa Market Monday

Wesley Chapel, one of Tampa’s most popular areas, is located in Pasco County. It has three zip codes 33543, 33544, and 33545. Today, we’ll look at how the real estate market did in March 2017.

Median Sold Price* climbed 11% (or $27,705) from $249,950 in March of 2016 to $277,655 in March of 2017. The Number of Homes Sold outpaced March 2016 sales, as 146 homes sold compared to 130 in March of 2016. The Number of Homes for Sale in March 2017 rose 6% from 501 (March 2016) to 529 (March 2017). The Number of New Properties also increased 11% from March of 2016 compared to March of 2017.

TheAverage Number of Days a home stayed on the market dropped 21%, as homes sold 13 days faster, on average, than in March of 2016. Housing inventory measured by Months of Supply also fell from 2.3 to 1.9 months, a 19% decrease compared to March a year ago.

(MEDIAN SOLD PRICE – Median means “in the middle,” meaning that half of the homes sold above the Median Sold Price and half sold below it. For example, if 5 homes sold in a zip code for $200,000, $250,000, $300,000, $400,000 and $800,000, the Median Price would be the one in the middle. In this case, that would be the $300,000 home. In contrast, average selling price would just be the sum of the selling prices of the 5 homes divided by 5, or $330,000. Many real estate statisticians prefer median price as a better indicator of the “typical” price within an area or zip code. Why? “Outliers” or homes sold at an extremely high or low price — like the $800,000 home in our example — do not affect it as much.)

Bottom Line

As the busiest part of the real estate season revs up look for Wesley Chapel home sales to continue to outperform 2016. While mortgage rates have stayed lower than expected, they will likely go up as the year progresses. So buyers and sellers should act now to take advantage of the most ideal market conditions.

Entrepreneurs poised to launch a business might want to take a look at Wesley Chapel or Riverview. Those are the top two small cities in the Tampa Bay area for new companies, according to WalletHub.

The personal finance website compared 1,261 cities in three key performance areas — business environment, which considers factors such as the average length of the workweek, number of startups per capital and industry variety; access to resources, which includes metrics around financing, investors access and human resources; and business costs, including office space, labor costs and corporate taxes.

From the Blog:

A recent report released by Down Payment Resource shows that 65% of first-time homebuyers purchased their homes with a down payment of 6% or less in the month of January.

The trend continued through all buyers with a mortgage, as 62% made a down payment of less than 20%, which is consistent with findings from December.

An article by DS News points to the new wave of millennial homebuyers:

“It seems that the long-awaited influx of millennial home buyers is beginning. Ellie Mae reported that mortgages to millennial borrowers for new home purchases continued their ascent in January, accounting for 84 percent of closed loans.”

There are many benefits to homeownership. One of the top benefits is being able to protect yourself from rising rents by locking in your housing cost for the life of your mortgage.

Don’t Become Trapped

Jonathan Smoke, Chief Economist at realtor.com, reported on what he calls a “Rental Affordability Crisis.” He warns that,

“Low rental vacancies and a lack of new rental construction are pushing up rents, and we expect that they’ll outpace home price appreciation in the year ahead.”

In the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University’s 2016 State of the Nation’s Housing Report, they revealed that “The number of cost-burdened households roseto 21.3 million. Even more troubling, the number with severe burdens (paying more than 50% of income for housing) jumped to a record 11.4 million.” These households struggle to save for a rainy day and pay other bills, such as food and healthcare.

Advice for Buyers:

While most home buyers spend their time at an open house passively observing the layout of the rooms and the name brands on the kitchen appliances, smart buyers know the things that are really important to look for when buying a home.

In competitive markets, you’ll often walk into an open house that has been deep cleaned, upgraded, and staged with stylish furniture, so you shouldn’t be overly impressed by a house that looks and smells nice. (You can, however, be rightly appalled by a home that looks and smells atrocious.)

Think of the open house as a first date: It’s an opportunity to look beyond the pictures you saw online and figure out if the property is worth seeing again—or if you should move on and never look back.

Advice for Sellers

Think bigger is better? Well, most of today’s home shoppers don’t. The homes that are in most demand by buyers in a hypercompetitive real estate environment have just three bedrooms and two baths, according to a new realtor.com® survey.

Ranch-style homes, those suburban classics, top the wish lists of 42% of home seekers surveyed by realtor.com this spring. But more than half of those we polled are looking for a relatively modest three-bedroom home, while 75% are considering a two-bathroom home.

“While we often think of dream homes as being big and bold, that’s not what we’re hearing from potential buyers today,” said Sarah Staley, a spokesperson for realtor.com.

Home Loans

Following a weak March jobs report, the 10-year Treasury yield dropped about 5 basis points. The 30-year mortgage rate fell 2 basis points to 4.08 percent. Not only did the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage decline for the fourth consecutive week in our survey, it also fell to a new 2017 low.

30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 4.08 percent with an average 0.5 point for the week ending April 13, 2017, down from last week when it averaged 4.10 percent. A year ago at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 3.58 percent.

15-year FRM this week averaged 3.34 percent with an average 0.5 point, down from last week when it averaged 3.36 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 2.86 percent.

Average commitment rates should be reported along with average fees and points to reflect the total upfront cost of obtaining the mortgage. Visit the following link for the Definitions. Borrowers may still pay closing costs which are not included in the survey.

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Doug, Annette & Dale Bohannon

Team Bohannon Real Estate Experts

Keller Williams Tampa Properties
Tampa, Florida

(813) 979-4963

If you're looking for a trusted partner who exceeds expectations, reduces stress, fulfills promises, and is on top of all the details, consider Tampa's Top Real Estate Team: Doug, Annette and Dale Bohannon when buying or selling your home, call us today at 813-979-4963